Newcastle United ran riot at the London Stadium tonight strolling to a much-deserved 5-1 victory over West Ham and Alexander Isak scored possibly the pick of the bunch.
It might be slightly greedy to say that we should have had more than five tonight, but that’s the reality. Lukasz Fabianski, despite shipping five goals, actually had a decent game, he made some crucial saves to keep the score down.
However, he was definitely at fault for Alexander Isak‘s goal, Newcastle‘s fourth. Racing out of his box and coming off second best to Isak, the ball dropped to the Swedish international’s feet allowing him to dink the ball over Fabianski and into an empty net. So confident was Isak in his effort, he just stood, hands on hips and waited for the ball to cross the line.
Jamie Redknapp is a big fan of Alexander Isak
Jamie Redknapp absolutely loved that, saying in his post match analysis on Sky Sports: “That’s a cool move from a cool player.”
That was Isak’s seventh goal in 12 appearances meaning he’s only second now behind Erling Haaland in goals per minute in the Premier League according to Opta.
Callum Wilson starting over Alexander Isak shows the strength we now have
Isak was so good in the last few games that he looked like he couldn’t be dropped with Eddie Howe lauding him as ‘outstanding‘. But Howe opted to go with Callum Wilson from the start tonight, probably with one eye on the congested fixture list this week and another on the fact that Wilson just loves scoring against West Ham.
Tonight was a huge example of the quality we have in the squad now that we can take off a player on a hattrick in Wilson and replace him with a player that’s just as likely to score goals in Isak.
At the beginning of the season it felt like if we lost one player from our starting eleven our team looked like it would struggle, but now, our bench actually looks strong. That’s not through having brought in new players, it’s because of how much our fringe players have improved.
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